a fanblog for robin mckinley's works, but mostly the damar series! main blog @the-dot. mostly an abandoned blog, but i always want to hear about your damar thoughts
i love it when someone reads or remembers the damar books and my notifications get flooded as they like every post ive ever made. genuinely it's great. keep up the good work and sorry i don't post here more often
How to explain to the king whose trying to get you to move in with him that you can’t cause you’re busy fucking his legendary great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother: yeah sorry lowland air clouds my mind
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Damar Series - Robin McKinley
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Corlath (Damar), Original Male Character(s), Faran (Damar)
Additional Tags: working title: Corlath Bitch-Slaps A Priest, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Fem!Corlath, Gonturan (Damar) - Freeform, the author is queer and wanted lesbian corlath, but first i had to explore her past
Summary:
Are you going to lay there and let it happen? the thing kicking in her chest asked her. Or are you going to do something?
Are you still doing writing prompts? Because a touch-starved fic with Corlath not realizing that Harry's background means she's never had much physical touch except for her family would make my day!!
Or a fic where Harry's kelar goes offline briefly, and the war hasn't been over long, and she's nervous/insecure about how Corlath would react to it?
Absolutely no worries or pressure, I just saw some of your prompts and went, "we could make a fic out of this" and also I'm DELIGHTED to find the Blue Sword fandom!
hi friend! my writing braincells are currently offline (along with my damar braincells - i still love them but i forgot about this blog, oops), but let's play with that first concept anyway, because i love it. this isn't writing, just headcanons (kind of), but i hope you enjoy! under a cut bc it's a little long.
...
so, i think harry doesn't even realize she's touchstarved, because yknow. fantasy victorian english repression. when mathin reaches out to correct her grip, or when one of the other riders claps her on the back, or when the king briefly touches her arm*, she does not know why her heart races, but while she draws into herself, she does not stop them.
(*corlath knows his position too well to touch people freely, when they might fear saying n to him. corlath, i think, would understand harry's problem completely. however - )
corlath, ever observant, draws a slightly wrong conclusion from watching harry stiffen every time someone touches her: he thinks she doesn't like to be touched at all. that's fine, he tells himself. she's in a country full of people and customs she doesn't know. it's reasonable so he bids the servants to let her dress and wash herself, he reminds the riders gently not to jostle her around as they do the others, he leaves her alone and thinks all is well. and then they get married.
harry, for her part, has neatly boxed the problem away by this time. (don't listen to her. this is more repression. she hasn't dealt with fuckall.) married people are allowed and encouraged to touch each other, so she clings to corlath like a limpet in private. he's surprised, but definitely not unwilling to indulge her, so most mornings find them curled up in a pile. (often with narknon, sometimes without, because she's very offended by the things they get up to when she's not there.)
eventually, he does ask her about it. "i assumed you didn't like being touched," he says one day. "might i ask what changed?"
"...what gave you that impression," she says, currently in such a tangle of limbs that it's difficult to tell who begins where.
they talk it over. at some point, they admit to each other that they can probably count on both hands the number of people who have ever hugged them, and hold each other a little tighter.
anyway fast forward corlath encourages her to touch him whenever she wants, because there's no one to tell them no. harry, still outlander enough to balk at the idea of PDA, holds his hand under the table, and feels very daring. she touches richard more often, too, reminded that she can - often slinging an arm around his shoulders to annoy him, or hugging him when he leaves. she's shier with jack or the riders, but she accepts their renewed touches with a smile.
i don't have a good way to end this, but i hope you enjoyed! ^^
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Words: 14804
Fandom: Damar Series - Robin McKinley
Rating: Teen And Up Audience
Warnings: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Aerin, Luthe, Maur
Additional Tags: did this have to be anywhere near as angst-filled as it is? no, but they say do what you’re good at and i’m apparently good at angst so, hey aerin why are you going to a musical instead of therapy, content warning for aerin’s less than stellar mental health, maur gets a content warning too, whoops, Dissociation, Angst, Musicals, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, I Wrote This Instead Of Sleeping, on multiple occasions, don’t be like me kids, Whump
Summary:
Centuries after the events of The Hero and the Crown, when much of Aerin’s tale has fallen to legend and myth and little is remembered of her true life, Teka’s journals are discovered in a long hidden room of the castle. From the journals is published a biography of Aerin’s life, leading to a revival of the still present legend. From this comes a musical titled Aerin Fire-hair, as yet another retelling of the tale.
Well, thinks Aerin, it could be interesting to see. And I haven’t been keeping track of the legends; it will be good to know what comes of this.
uhh hi there, people that appeared in my notifs overnight! my name is dot, I use they/them, and I still love damar but irl stuff is killing me dead so this blog has fallen to the wayside. :')
since tumblr's tagging system is What It Is, I'd love to be tagged in any content you make for robin mckinley stories!! Show Me Your Creations
i think that's all I have to say, so goodbye for now! see you whenever my hyperfixation comes back, and remember to appreciate aerin. 💖💖💖
Next in the line of redheads who impacted me: the firehair herself, Aerin-sol from The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley.
Aerin is the first redheaded heroine I read where her red hair is actually important to her character. She lives in a country of dark-haired, dark eyed people so her hair color signifies her otherness. It’s also a reminder of her dead mother, who is rumored to be a witch who bespelled the king to have a child.
Regardless, her hair is a source of pride for Aerin, which was a big deal to me as a kid, who was bullied for being a redhead and had a hard time accepting that part of myself.
The book is about how Aerin finds her place in the kingdom by taking the profession of dragon-slaying, which is considered glorified pest control, and becoming such an expert she gains the love of the people and confidence in herself.
I tried to be more ambitious with this one. Not completely satisfied with how it turned out, but ce la vie.
[image ID: Bugs Bunny meme that reads, "I wish all rare pair shippers whose ships have fewer fics on AO3 than Ever Given/Suez Canal a very reminder that Yuletide nominations open up in Sept/Oct]
i love the internet because it enables me to scream at other damar fans HEY, REMEMBER HOW TOR SAID IT FELT LIKE THEY HAD BEEN FIGHTING A WAR FOR CENTURIES BUT IT HAD ONLY BEEN A MONTH? DO YOU REMEMBER HOW AERIN CANONICALLY SPENT CENTURIES CLIMBING AND FALLING? DO YOU THINK DAMAR WAS STUCK IN ENDLESS WAR WHILE AERIN WAS IN AGSDED'S TOWER?
romaincrisis
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